Fracture

Time Out says

3 out of 5 stars

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Users say

Time Out says

3 out of 5 stars

Just once, it would be nice to see Anthony Hopkins rattle his
late-period calm, suitable only for playing crazies. Until then, he
makes a completely innocuous cuckold in Fracture: a chilly
L.A. engineer content to play with his metal models until he blithely
offs his wife in the film’s first ten minutes. Ably representing
himself on trial (the arresting officer is his wife’s lover, thus
rendering the confession inadmissible), he enters into a head-to-head
with a young public prosecutor (Half Nelson’s Gosling) whom he likes to call “old sport” and wink at, ominously.

None of this silliness should work half as well as it does. But you
find yourself absorbed by Kramer Morgenthau’s voluptuous cinematography
and a swooning score that makes this feel like a guilty cousin to daffy
’80s legal thrillers such as Jagged Edge. Best of all is the
central showdown, easily the strangest clash of acting styles since
mumbling Robert De Niro met Bill Murray in Mad Dogand Glory. Gosling
has already become a welcome presence in movies, both intense and
loosey-goosey; if anyone can outfox Hannibal it’s him. And who, pray
tell, to referee? Only one woman is up to it: The Black Dahlia’s batshit-crazy Fiona Shaw, as a judge riding out the storm.